BEES are synonymous with summer, either lingering over flowers in the garden or banging against the bedroom window trying to escape!

Apart from the production of honey and their sting, most people could be forgiven for knowing little about these regular visitors to the flowerbed.

One group, whose members know more than most, is the Kendal and South Westmorland Beekeepers Association, which was formed in the 1940s.

With around 40 members meeting once a month, representatives will be making a beeline for Cumbria Wildlife Trust's Crook Road headquarters at Kendal on Sunday to give a live demonstration of beekeeping as part of the wider Garden Bonanza at the Plumgarths site.

To explain more, association secretary Roger Blocksidge told the Gazette: "South Lakeland is not the best area of the country as far as honey production goes, but what honey is produced is excellent. Unfortunately, beekeeping and honey production are totally dependent on the weather.

"Poor weather equals poor harvest. In a good season it is not uncommon to get 100lbs of honey from one hive, although the average is much less than this."

He explained that a hive of bees consists of a queen bee, a few hundred drone bees and the remainder are workers.

The queen is an egg producing-machine. She can live for four years - although after three her egg production slows - and she is replaced, either by the beekeeper or the bees themselves.

The worker bees live for about four weeks during the summer, by which time they are worn out, while the drones live for one summer and are unceremoniously evicted around August by the worker bees for being a drain on food stores.

Mr Blocksidge said: "Any workers emerging late in the summer will survive the winter, remaining in the hive in a cluster to maintain a core temperature. Bees are able to survive low temperatures providing they remain dry.

"A hive in the height of the season can contain anything up to 80,000 bees and therefore care must be taken when considering where the hive will be situated."

Bees are quite happy flying when the outside temperature is 50F or 10C above.

Mr Blocksidge added: "If you are worried about bee stings, just remember it is worse for the bee, once a bee has inserted its sting it will die within a couple of days, but you will survive!"

Julia Hoggard, treasurer of the association, explained that spring was the beginning of the beekeeping year, marked by the queen beginning to lay eggs.

The eggs develop into larvae and then young bees so the hive population increases.

This produces large numbers of worker bees to coincide with the arrival of the first spring flowers. The pollen is then gathered to feed the growing larvae, and the nectar carried into the hive is turned into honey to feed the adult bees.

The surplus is stored away in the honeycomb to sustain the bees throughout the flowerless months of autumn and winter.

Ms Hoggard said: "Bees wax is made into polishes and cosmetics and was used to make candles in the days before electricity. A century ago, like keeping a pig to supply meat for the winter, it was common for our forebears to have some hives or skeps of bees, beekeeping was part of their life, and bee boles shelves in walls to accommodate the skeps, and bee houses, are quite common in Cumbria."

Among the roles of a beekeepers is to harvest the surplus honey and wax, to provide a dry wooden hive, work to prevent the bees flying away, and trying to breed peaceful bees that are easily handled and are good honey gatherers.

She said: "If you are interested in becoming a beekeeper, you will become a woodworker, a geneticist and a honey harvester, you will produce products for sale, perhaps become interested in artwork with wax, and cooking with honey.

"You will discover there is a world of beekeeping associations and even honey shows. Your bees will do the vital job of pollinating our food crops."

Anyone wanting learn more about beekeeping can contact Mr Blocksidge on 01539-734436 or get along to Plumgarths from 10am on Sunday. Between October and April, meetings are held at the Medical Centre in Captain French Lane, Kendal, from 7pm.